


It's Not Perfect, But It's Mine

by SomewhatCharred



Category: RWBY
Genre: And so does Blake, BMBLBabies, Because Yang deserves all of the happiness, F/F, Family Feels, Fluff, One Shot, Referenced Ninghtmares, Sera & Rì Chū
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-28
Updated: 2018-10-28
Packaged: 2019-08-09 06:11:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,925
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16444337
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SomewhatCharred/pseuds/SomewhatCharred
Summary: It's surprising, in a way, she'd worried so much about motherhood, about whether or not she'd be able to take care of them. It had never really occurred to her that they might take care of her.“It’s never easy, bearing your heart will always be terrifying. No matter how much you love them, and how much they love you. But I’ve always found that it’s worth it.”





	It's Not Perfect, But It's Mine

She woke up gasping, heart hammering against her ribs and ragged breath tearing at her lungs, the room span around her as she lurched to a sit and her eyes struggled to find anything in the suffocating darkness. She moved to brush matted hair from her sweat slicked forehead, slipping into momentary panic when her hand was missing.

Reality knitted itself back together around her, prosthetic lying on the bedside table, the moonlight seeping through the open window with the night air of Menagerie, chilling against her skin. Achingly she tried to calm herself; shaking to trembling, tortured gasps to exhausted sobs.

“Mommy?”

The voice startled her, heart still racing in her chest, and her head snapped around. Amethyst eyes met her, darkened to indigo in the low light and half hidden behind a midnight fringe, wide with confusion and concern they were too young to bear. Rì Chū bounced nervously on her uncertain toes, not quite tall enough to see over the bed, feline tail pressed against her leg.

“Sorry sweetie, did I wake you?” She stumbled over the words, trying to ignore the tremors and scratchy tears in her voice.

Messy blonde hair emerged from behind the toddler, Sera looking up cautiously from behind her sister, hands pressing golden cat ears to her head, almost on the verge of tears herself.

Yang pressed her voice down to a whisper, the younger twin’s hearing more sensitive even than Blake’s. “I’m really sorry, was I too loud?”

It’s Rì Chū who answers. “Y’were shouting.” She shuffled, looking down at her feet. “Sounded scared.”

“It was just a bad dream dear, it’s okay.” She pushed herself more upright, an awkward action with only one arm, and tried to scrape together some semblance of composure. “Sorry, usually your Mom wakes me before they get too bad.” Her eyes flick for a second to the empty half of the bed, longing sharp between her ribs.

“She takes the bad dreams away?”

“She does.” Yang forced a smile, but it didn’t seem to fool the 2-year-olds, Sera tugged on her sisters arm, ears released but still pressed to her head, and the two had a silent exchange for a moment. She moved forwards then, crouching and disappearing from view. Yang leaned to see over the edge, confused for a moment, before Rì Chū began to climb the side of the bed, Sera boosting her, then stopping at the top to lift her sister up with her.

Yang watched with a swirl of emotions, pride in her daughters mixed with a realisation of exactly how cookies were going missing from even the top cupboards, and shuffled over to make room for them. She needn’t have bothered, the moment they were both up Sera wobbled right over to her, Yang returning her embrace perhaps a little too fiercely.

She lay back down, Sera curling into her side, taking Yang’s arm and draping it over herself. Rì Chū perched herself on her mother’s stomach, “We help?” she said simply, and Yang could only nod mutely in answer. She seemed satisfied with that, curling into a ball and pulling the duvet over herself.

Yang lay there for a while, as her heartbeat slowed, emotions a roiling wildfire inside her. Confusing, but good. If her cheeks were wet it was with happy tears, and when she slept she dreamt of nothing at all.

 

* * *

 

It was strange, she said to Velvet the next day. They sat together in the park, the kids running wild; of the six children of team CFVY only one of them showed any sign of Velvet’s more reserved demeanour, Kona sat under a tree with Sera, a pair of colouring books between them, the rest were bundles of chaotic energy that Rì Chū seemed to feed off and Yang would never cease to be impressed by Velvet and the others’ ability to handle them.

“Strange how?”

“I guess it just caught me off guard. I worried so much about being a mother… I guess with how I grew up, what parenthood seemed to do to my family, I thought that it might break me somehow; that once they were here I wouldn’t want to take care of them anymore, like my mom, or wouldn’t be able to like my dad.” That was the problem with insecurities, even after pushing past them they were still just behind, breathing down her neck. Leaving them behind entirely was another struggle, one she didn’t know how to approach.

Velvet shook her head. “It’s hard to imagine you as anything other than the perfect mother.”

“I’m so far from perfect. It’s more just, I was so caught up in panicking over how I would take care of them, I never even thought about the possibility that they might take care of me.”

“Does it bother you?”

“I feel a bit guilty I guess, I mean they’re not even three years old, they shouldn’t be dealing with my crap.”

“Yang, your feelings aren’t a burden to the people who love you, they’re a privilege. You don’t need to be some invulnerable goddess around your daughters, they’ll love you just as much when you’re just a person.”

She sighed, running a hand through loose hair. “I know, I do, I must’ve had this conversation with Blake a hundred times. It’s just difficult trying to unlearn that crap.” It was funny in a way, a childhood spent raising a sister had left her utterly unprepared for daughters, or perhaps it was more accurate to say that it had left her with too many emotional hang-ups to count. Past experience only counted for so much when you resolved to be better. “I really miss Blake.”

“How long’s she gone for?”

“Just a few days, but she’s out of comm range, so I can’t even call her. I don’t really handle being alone very well if you couldn’t tell.”

“You’re not alone. Your daughters want to be there for you, my advice: Let them.” She turned to Yang, taking the enormous risk of letting her children slip out of sight for a few seconds just to underline her point. “You don’t need to explain everything to them, but letting them in is good for you, all of you.”

“You make it sound so easy.”

“It’s never easy, bearing your heart will always be terrifying. No matter how much you love them, and how much they love you. But I’ve always found that it’s worth it.”

 

* * *

 

She meant to have a conversation about it, but the twins were a step ahead once again. Sera disappeared after brushing her teeth, Yang a little distracted by Rì Chū’s excited rambling about the day’s events spoken a little incoherently through minty foam, she reappeared back on Yang’s bed, waiting patiently.

So, Yang acquiesced, letting the twins put her to bed for once, curling up with the both of them under the blankets and tried to centre herself under their expectant gazes. She pushed back against the tightness in her chest, breathing deep. Revisiting her and Blake’s shared trauma was one thing. Dulling the bloody edge of the story to protect her daughters, and doing so without Blake at her side, was another entirely.

“When your mom and I were younger some bad people tried to hurt us, tried to hurt a lot of people.”

Rì Chū scrunched up her face, an expression of open and all-consuming confusion. “But you protec’ ev’ryone?”

She half nodded, tears forming in the corners of her eyes faster than she could blink them away. “We tried. We protected each other, and anyone we could, but we still got hurt.”

“But the bad people are gone?”

She nodded more vigorously this time, swiping a stray teardrop from her cheek. “They are. But sometimes, when I’m asleep, I forget. And I get scared. I just need someone to remind me.”

“We’ll r’mind you.” The look on her face was, to put it bluntly, heart-mending. The earnest affection, admiration, love and quiet determination, she looked so much like her mother.

“I know you will, thank you sweetheart.”

Sera curled into her further, gripping a little tighter, and mumbled something into her chest. Yang felt the words more than she heard them.

“I love you too.”

And she remembered the feeling, that same rush of relief she’d felt before, when she met Blake, when she had reunited with her, when they talked and cried and promised to always stay by one another. The feeling of joy and hope that she was a little less alone, that she was loved and treasured in the way she’d never dared to hope for. And that she didn’t need to say anything, there was nothing left, not tonight. She pulled up the covers, held her daughters close, and let herself slip away into the comforting shadows she’d found her home in.

 

* * *

 

A few days passed before she awoke in the night again.

Little research had been done on Aura, the ethics were dubious at best and those drawn to it rarely had pure intentions. There were theories, though perhaps stories would be a more accurate term, that Aura’s could become intertwined. That a bond might form, never deliberately, but not by chance either, a connection which once made could never severed. One that changed the essence of a person, of perhaps was a reaction to that change, and bound them forever to another. It couldn’t be proven, but cynical as she could be Yang didn’t need it to be.

Some things were simply true.

So when she awoke, unplagued by nightmares, undisturbed by sudden noise and yet feeling completely safe, she didn’t need to open her eyes to know why.

“You’re home early.” Her voice was hushed and husky from sleep, and Blake’s was barely a whisper.

“Ilia offered to oversee the clean up, demanded even, I think she got sick of my pining.” For all its lack of volume there was still a slight lilt to the whisper, they’d long ago taken the label of ‘disgustingly romantic’ as a mark of pride, and wearing feelings on their sleeves to the exasperation of their friends was a running game between them. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“S’okay.”

There was some shuffling, the sounds of discarded clothes and drawers being opened, then: “I see someone’s in my spot.”

Yang mirrored the smirk in Blake’s voice. “Two someones actually.”

“They have bad dreams?”

Yang shook her head gently, cracking open her eyes as Blake slid under the covers with her. “I did.”

A few emotions flickered across the faunus’ face, difficult to identify in the darkness, but she swept down, planting a kiss on Yang’s forehead and an arm over the sleeping toddlers to embrace her. “You okay?”

She nodded fiercely. “Blake I…” The words caught, a rush, a tidal wave, of emotion. Too much perhaps, but all of it good. “Thank you. I never thought I… I just…”

Blake blinked back at her, tears and love and happiness in her eyes. “I know.”

Yang exhaled shakily, then breathed in, the night air rushed in, cool against her racing heart. Twin weights on her chest pressed only happiness and her wife’s eyes anchored her in the moment. Sera squirmed slightly, her ears tickling against Yang’s chin, and a pure sort of joy jolted through her. Her lips worked wordlessly and Blake only pressed closer, her lips on Yang’s temple then brushing her ear so gently, heartbeats in sync and she thought again of bonded souls and family.

“I _know._ ”

 

**Author's Note:**

> I meant to write this months ago, things have a way of getting caught in my head but never making it to paper (or digital document form). Still, welcome to my headcannon, where things are cute and happy even if they're painful sometimes. The title is taken from the Tim Minchin song 'Not Perfect', which you should totally listen to! I wanted to write something short and sweet before I got caught up in my next multi-chapter endeavour.
> 
> Hope you enjoyed, I'd love to know what you guys thought! Aaand I also draw stuff over on my tumblr if you're interested! (somewhatcharred.tumblr.com)


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